"Tom Godwin - The Space barbarians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Godwin Tom)

John looked at the white spot on the screen again. It was not really an
image of the Ghost. Their own ships were in
second-level-hyperspaceтАФwhile the Ghost ship was always in third-level.
The white spot on the viewscreen, they felt sure, was caused by secondary
radiations from the Ghost's spy-ray as it probed into second-level.

Dale Ord came into the room; dark-eyed, dark-haired, a big man with
an air of amiable good nature which was always in such contrast to the
animal-like alertness and thinly veiled savagery of the pale-eyed Norman.

"Tiny is terrified," Dale said. "What kind of alien monsters could scare
her like that?"

She was trembling violently and he was stroking her in an attempt to
quiet her. She was a frail little mutant, hypersensitive telepathically, and
this was their first opportunity to use her when the Ghost ship was near.

"What are you afraid of, Tiny?" John asked.

"Not know," Tiny quavered. "Scared to look."

"You have to, Tiny," he said. "Now, go ahead and look. All of us here,
and Fenrir and Sigyn, too, will never let this thing hurt you." he little
mocker's dark, frightened eyes looked from face to face, down at the big
prowlers, then back to John. Reluctantly, still near the point of terror, she
said, "I look."

Her eyes went vacant as she opened her mind to receive with all mental
shields down. Then she shrieked, jerked convulsively, and was dead.
 John said quickly, "Tip, what did Tiny see?"

"Not know!" Tip's reply came as such a frightened chatter that it was
almost unintelligible. "Tiny knowтАФTiny die!"

"Were you enough in Tiny's mind to tell where the bad thing is?"

Tip lifted a shaking paw to point toward the stern of the ship.

"That wayтАФlong, long that way."

The three men looked at one another. "That wayтАФ" the mocker had
said. The Ghost ship was in the opposite direction. There was a silence as
they realized what the little mocker could not tell them.

A long, long way in that direction lay the suns of Orion and the black,
unknown Great Nebula.

"Js the bad thing still there?" John asked.